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WASHINGTON -- The Iranian government is in full damage control mode over the recent defection of a top Revolutionary Guard general and former deputy defense minister, well-placed sources in Tehran tell NewsMax.

Iranian government officials have issued a series of contradictory claims about the defection of Gen. Alireza Asgari, 63, who "disappeared" from his hotel room in Istanbul, Turkey on February 7 and reportedly defected to the United States.

But in recent days, the mood within intelligence circles in Tehran has turned to panic as rumors have begun to circulate that a second well-placed Revolutionary Guards general has defected, NewsMax sources said.

When reports of Gen. Asgari's disappearance first surfaced last week, the regime immediately claimed that he had been "abducted" while on an overseas vacation, either by an Israeli or a U.S. intelligence unit. This ploy was backed by former Revolutionary Guards commander Gen. Mohsen Rezai, who now publishes an independent Internet news site in Persian, baztab.com.

"Rezai is close to Gen. Asgari," NewsMax sources in Tehran said, "and so he has been eager to paint Asgari as a devoted officer of the Revolutionary Guards who most certainly was kidnapped by US or Israeli secret services."

On March 10, Baztab reported that Gen. Asgari's wife – previously reported to have left Iran with him – was actually in Tehran. If true, this would tend to credit the notion that Asgari had been abducted, and not defected.

As it turns out, Gen. Asgari has two wives. His first wife left Iran with him, bringing along their three children. His second wife, Mansoureh Mirmohammadi, is just 31 years old and is a relative of Rezai, the sources said. She has indeed remained in Iran.

Shortly after Gen. Asgari went missing on February 7, a damage control team headed by Rev. Guards Brig. Gen. Naser Ghasemi was set up.

Gen. Ghasemi is the deputy chief of counter-intelligence for the Revolutionary Guards. Over the weekend, he recommended that the regime blame the "kidnapping" of Asgari on the Mujahedin-e Khalq, a militant opposition group that was supported all during the 1980s and the 1990s by Saddam Hussein.

On Sunday, Baztab dutifully quoted Rasoul Nafisi, an Iranian political analyst based in Virginia, asserting that the MEK was responsible for Asgari's kidnapping, noting that the group "is active in Turkey… and might be behind this event."

Since then, various state-run news outlets and newspapers owned by senior government officials have published a series of contradictory reports about Asgari's disappearance.

Perhaps the strangest account was published on Monday by the Fars News Agency in Tehran. They claimed that Asgari's wife -now named Ziba Ahmadi - and three of his children had just met with the second secretary of the Turkish embassy in Tehran to inquire about Asgari's whereabouts.

Ms. Ahmadi then told state-run Tehran radio that her husband was "43 years old" but had retired "in the last two years" and was engaged in "import-export trade with Syria," primarily in olive oil.

She added that he went missing on December 9 – not February 7, as previously reported. Newsmax sources in Tehran believe that Ms. Ahmadi is an actor hired by the regime, not the wife of Gen. Asgari.

Her account was repeated in today's Guardian newspaper in London, which quoted Davoud Asgari – brother of the missing general, who lives in London – claiming that his brother had been kidnapped and that all his family remained in Iran.

All this comes as no surprise to Iranian commentator Alireza Nourizadeh, who told Newsmax last week to expect a "smear campaign" against Gen. Asgari in the state-controlled media.

"In the next few days, they will make every effort to destroy this man's reputation," he said. "This man came out with lots of secrets."

Gen. Asgari's defection comes as the United States continues to interrogate Iranian intelligence officers captured by U.S. forces in Iraq.

The two most prominent Iranians are Jalal Sharifi – a professional intelligence officer posing as a diplomat, who was captured during the raid on an Iranian "consulate" in Irbil on January 10 – and Brig. Amir Mohsen Shirazi, a Revolutionary Guards intelligence operative captured in December in southern Iraq.

In recent days, intelligence circles in Tehran have been awash with rumors of a second high-level defection to the Americans of a Revolutionary Guards intelligence officer, Brig. Gen. Seyed Mohammad Soltani.

Gen. Soltani is a career intelligence officer, who took over as head of the Persian Gulf bureau of Rev. Guards intelligence in October 2006. On February 8 – just one day after Gen Asgari disappeared in Istanbul – Gen. Soltani traveled to Bandar Abbas, where he was scheduled to inspect an intelligence listening post. Instead, he vanished.

Bandar Abbas is Iran's largest port and houses the Rev. Guards main naval base. It sits at the mid-point of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, where 20% of the world's oil transits daily.

So far, the official media in Tehran has not mentioned Gen. Soltani's alleged disappearance and defection. But NewsMax sources in Tehran said that his wife and two children have also disappeared, and that the Rev. Guards searched his house in the Amirieh district of Tehran searched on Feb. 11.

On Feb. 13, Rev. Guards counter-intelligence officers informed the Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS) of Gen. Soltani's disappearance. On the following day, they sent a "red notice" with Soltani's photograph to all Iranian ports and airports. On Feb. 18, they arrested Soltani's brother, Seyed Akbar Soltani, who is a teacher at Imam Hussein University.

Gen. Soltani was known as "Engineer Mousavi" within Rev. Guards intelligence, and has intimate knowledge of foreign intelligence operations, especially in Iraq and in other Persian Gulf countries, Newsmax sources in Iran said.

"How the United States treats these defectors is critically important," said opposition activist Sardar Haddad. "If they treat them well, the word will get back to Tehran and you could see the flood gates open. Lots of people are available for the taking under the right conditions."

As the debate between the Democrats and themselves over the war in Iraq becomes increasingly absurd, inside Iran another debate of momentous proportions is underway.

It involves Iran’s involvement with Iraq, and who is to blame for recent Iranian failures that have led to the capture of high-ranking Iranian intelligence officials by multinational forces in Iraq and the defection of two senior Revolutionary Guards intelligence officers, probably to the U.S.

The Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS, aka VEVAK) are hurling stink bombs at each other in the corridors of power in Tehran. Each is accusing the other of having screwed up in Iraq and allowing Iran’s intelligence and terrorist-support networks to get rolled up over the past three months.

More importantly, my sources in Tehran tell me: each organization also suspects the other of secret ties to U.S., British, and/or Israeli intelligence. True or not, this is terrific news for the United States. Mutual suspicion is the first stage of a crippling sick think that has ruined more than one world-class intelligence organization.

MOIS is the civilian branch of Iran’s intelligence. It tracks the Iranian opposition, handles internal security and counterespionage work. It also does Secret Service-style protection of the leadership.

The Rev. Guards Intelligence Department is tasked with penetrating foreign military organizations, acquiring defense technology, and liaising with armed terrorist organizations overseas, such as Hezbollah.

Both support Iranian government-ordered terrorist operations, from sending hit squads to assassinate dissidents, to blowing up U.S. and Israeli embassies. And both are deeply involved in Iraq.

In public, Iranian officials gloat over the coming American “defeat” in Iraq. In private, however, they fear the Bush administration will stand firm. The one thing giving them hope is the Democrats in Washington and their talk of an Iraq pullout.

Shortly after U.S. troops raided an Iranian intelligence headquarters in northern Iraq on the night of Jan. 10, the encourage of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei began referring to America as the Cobra standing on its tail.

Ayatollah Khamenei hastily convened a national security damage control committee to devise new strategies for reducing Iran’s footprint in Iraq. It was staffed almost exclusively with top Rev. Guards officers, including the head of IRGC intelligence, Maj. Gen. Morteza Rezai, and former deputy IRGC commander, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Baqr Zolqadr, now a deputy interior minister.

They accused MOIS of leaking information on rival IRGC networks in Iraq to the British, who passed the information to the Americans. That led to the capture over Christmas of a top IRGC operative, Brig. Gen. Amir Mohsen Shirazi.

As the U.S. raids on Iranian networks in Iraq intensified, the IRGC leaders urged Khamenei to order Ahmadinejad and MOIS to terminate their operations in Iraq, because they were “unprofessional.”

They also issued the Supreme Leader a dire warning: if MOIS continued to leak operational details of IRGC networks in Iraq to the British and the Americans, they would be compelled to strike back hard at the Americans. And that, in turn, could lead Iran into an open shooting war with the U.S. military.

Many Iranians believe this is just what Ahmadinejad wants, since his chiliastic vision of the End Times calls for an orgy of bloodshed on a planetary scale to usher in the return the 12th imam, the Imam Mahdi.

Even as this infighting continues, the Revolutionary Guards Qods Force is inserting fresh operatives into Iraq, according to my sources. More than one hundred fresh operatives have entered Iraq in recent weeks, even as militiamen loyal to Iranian stooge Muqtada al-Sadr have laid low.

The Iranian intelligence war and the rear guard effort by the IRGC to re-establish its operational networks in Iraq aren’t the only signs that the U.S. is starting to win in Iraq.

Last Friday, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of Multinational Division-North and the 25th Infantry Brigade in Iraq, told reporters that his troops have seized another cache of Iranian-made weapons and have "got momentum" in the fight against the insurgents.

Speaking from Baghdad via live video-conference to reporters at the Pentagon, Mixon said he has beefed up his forces in the Diyala province northeast of Baghdad in recent months and is now asking for more units to take counter-insurgency operations beyond the provincial capital, Baquba.

"I've got momentum and want to press forward," Mixon said. "I know what I would do with more troops." The full transcript of Mixon’s remarks is here.

So with these first encouraging signs of a turning tide in Iraq, wouldn’t you think that Congress would get behind the war effort, to send a strong message to the insurgents and to their primary backer, Iran?

You would be wrong.

On Thursday, the House Appropriations Committee conducted a marathon hearing on the President’s supplemental budget request to fund the war in Iraq.

For anyone who caught part of the hearing on C-SPAN, there were comic moments to this underlying tragedy.

At one point, Rep. Bill Young of Florida introduced an amendment to prohibit the use of any funds in the supplemental from being used for combat operations in Iraq, other than what was strictly necessary to protect U.S. lives and cover the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Rep. Young made clear he didn’t support his own amendment. However, because the appropriations bill was binding legislation – as opposed to the non-binding resolution calling for a U.S. withdrawal that passed a few weeks ago - he thought it was the proper moment to get committee members on the record on the war.

In the voice vote, more than a half-dozen of the committee’s 66 members voted “Yes” to the resolution. But when Rep. Young called for a recorded vote, not a single weasel stood by their vote.

The vote was 66 to nothing and the amendment was “narrowly defeated,” Chairman David Obey (D, WI) quipped.

Rep. Obey was filmed last week telling left-wing supporters that a vote for the supplemental was not a vote to prolong the war. They were wrong to protest his efforts to pass the president’s bill, because the Democrats had laid secret traps in the language that would actually end the war.

“We're trying to use the supplemental to end the war. But you can't end the war if you vote against the supplemental. It's time these idiot liberals understand that,” Obey said.

In case the “idiot liberals” didn’t get it, Obey got even more specific. “The language we have in the resolution ends the authority for the war. It makes it illegal to proceed with the war. You don’t have to defund something if the war doesn’t exist. That’s the problem. The liberal groups … don’t understand what the hell is in the bill.”

Thank-you, Congressman Obey. Just when the bad guys were beginning to lose hope, you are coming to their rescue.

Subject: URGENT - Need your help to counter NIAC and the IRI in California

Dear friends,

This Wednesday, March 28 at 9 AM, the California State Assembly will hear testimony on Assembly Bill 221, a bi-partisan effort sponsored by Assemblyman Joel Anderson (R-San Diego) and Jose Solorio (D-Anaheim), that would divest California ’s public retirement funds from companies that do business with Iran .

This is an absolutely critical moment, where you can make a tremendous difference. Your action TODAY can help this bill pass. I am going to ask you below to do two very simple things .

The National Iranian American Council, a group led by Trita Parsi that consistently parrots the views of reformists in Tehran , has come out publicly AGAINST this bill. They want to rope in Western businesses as a pro-Tehran lobby and are pretending to be THE voice of the Iranian-American community.

You know this is not true. So here is your chance to stand up and be counted.

We need to present Iranian-Americans who SUPPORT this important measure, which I believe will contribute to dramatically escalating the pressure on the Tehran regime by forcing multinational corporations that support the regime with capital and technology to rethink their investments in Iran.

Your support is absolutely critical.

Here’s what you can do today:

1) Assemblyman Anderson needs you to email or fax brief letters of support for the legislation, mentioning your name and your organization. Please send them to his chief of staff, Chip Englander, at the following address:

Iranian-Americans care deeply about America, and about Iran . We strongly support your proposed legislation, Assembly Bill 221, that would stop California state pension funds from investing in companies that do business in Iran . We believe this legislation sends a powerful message to the clerical leadership in Tehran and to large corporations that terror does not pay.

Thank-you again for your good work on this important issue.

Signed,
XXX
DON’T FORGET THE NAME OF YOUR ORGANIZATION.

IF ANY OF YOU CAN GO TO SACRAMENTO TO TESTIFY IN PERSON, PLEASE LET ME OR CHIP ENGLANDER KNOW IMMEDIATELY.

2) Call to express your support with these key members of the Assembly. The Public Safety committee has just six members: four votes are need to keep this bill alive.

If the Speaker supports this bill it will pass no question. If he opposes it it will likely die. He loves being significant and loves getting calls.

€ Jose Solorio (D-Anaheim)
Office – 916/319-2069
Cell – 714-514-6233

Solorio is Chairman of Public Safety and is a Democrat who has co-authored the bill. He supports it, but a “thank you,” would be wonderful.

€ Gene Mullin (D-San Mateo)
Office – 916/319-2019
Cell – 650/867-5166

Mullin is on the PERS Committee and will vote on the bill. He could be one of the two votes we need to pass the bill. He has verbally told Assemblyman Anderson that he likes the bill, but has not committed to vote for it.

Torrico is on the PERS Committee and will vote on the bill. He could be one of the two votes we need to pass the bill. He has verbally told Assemblyman Anderson that he likes the bill, but has not committed to vote for it. YOUR CALL CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE.

Hernandez is on the PERS Committee and will vote on the bill. He could be one of the two votes we need to pass the bill. He is a complete toss up on the bill and can go either way. He says he wants to check with leadership.

Fiona Ma is the Majority Whip for the Democrats and is a co-author of our bill. She supports it, but a “thank you,” would be wonderful.

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:

I testified in Annapolis , Maryland last week in support of similar legislation for Maryland . As I wrote in a commentary last Friday for Frontpage magazine:

“The pitch is very simple: Do you want your pension fund invested in companies who prop up Iran ? There are lots of other places you can invest. Why choose companies helping countries such as Iran whose leaders state publicly they want to destroy America ?”

March 19 (Bloomberg) -- California lawmakers are considering legislation that would force state pension funds to sell billions of dollars of shares in companies doing business with Iran .

The California Public Employees' Retirement System, the largest U.S. pension fund, and the state teachers' fund would have to unload shares in companies including BNP Paribas of France, Siemens AG of Germany and Eni SpA of Italy .

``Who's funding terrorism? It sure as hell shouldn't be our public employees,'' said Joel Anderson, a Republican assemblyman from El Cajon who introduced the measure. ``When you're looking at the war on terrorists, this is one of the best weapons we have -- just defunding them.'' Anderson estimated his legislation would affect $24 billion worth of investments.

California, which last year directed state pension funds to drop investments in Sudan, is among a growing number of U.S. states, from Texas to Maryland to New Jersey, moving to embrace so-called ``terror-free'' investing.

The movement, which includes federal legislation, against nations the State Department says sponsor terrorism, may put public pension managers in a front-line role in a debate over international policy. Some critics say the effort is misguided and would hurt small investors.

Calpers and the California State Teachers' Retirement System control $388 billion in investments. The legislation would affect overseas-based companies, since U.S. businesses are already mostly barred from trading with the countries on the State Department list: Iran , Sudan , Cuba , North Korea and Syria .

Federal Action

U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida , the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a measure last week that would require U.S. government pension funds to divest stocks of companies that invested more than $20 million in Iran 's energy industry.

``This measure will serve as one more critical instrument to deny the Iranian regime the economic resources required to pursue its dangerous activities,'' she said in a statement.

William Reinsch, president of a trade group representing 300 multinational corporations, said the legislation would work against U.S. interests.

``We're going to destroy our relations with the very countries we need in a united front against Iran ,'' said Reinsch of the Washington-based National Foreign Trade Council.

The council won a court challenge last month, overturning an Illinois law aimed at companies doing business in Sudan .

Heightening Tension

If public funds are forced to divest, he said, ``the real losers would be a bunch of retired policemen and firefighters.'' That's because pensions would have to sell international mutual funds, which have had high returns, he said.

The Bush administration has ratcheted up its criticism of Iran 's government, accusing it of supplying insurgents in Iraq with weapons to kill U.S. troops.

Supporters of Israel , which has been the target of threats by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are backing the move to pressure Iran .

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the main U.S. pro-Israel lobbying group, will support divestment efforts against Iran in 10 states this year, Howard Kohr, executive director of the Washington-based group, said in a March 12 speech. Divestment ``would have a crippling effect on Iran 's economy,'' Kohr said.

Shareholder Activism

A campaign to force companies to divest may affect ``a significant number of the world's largest companies,'' said Roger Robinson, who heads a company that tracks investing in terrorist nations. Robinson, a National Security Council aide in the Reagan administration, said he has no position on the California bill.

Edwina Frawley, a spokeswoman for Paris-based BNP Paribas, declined to answer questions about Iran . She said the company complies with ``all current ethical standards and regulations.'' Munich-based Siemens didn't respond to an e-mail request for comment, and a spokeswoman for Rome-based Eni declined to comment.

The California legislation puts Calpers, a leading proponent of good corporate-governance practices, in the position of being criticized itself.

``They have historically prided themselves on being ahead of the curve on issues like this,'' said Reinsch of the foreign trade council. ``One would think they would be ahead on this one.''

No Direct Investment

Calpers spokesman Clark McKinley said the fund doesn't invest directly in Iran , and he couldn't verify how much of its holdings might be affected by Anderson 's measure. The Calpers board hasn't yet reviewed the legislation, he said.

The teachers' fund, known as Calstrs, hasn't taken a position either, said spokeswoman Brenna Neuharth. Calstrs already screens investments for geopolitical risk, including human rights abuses and money laundering, Neuharth said.

When the California assembly approved divesting from Sudan last year, Calpers said it wouldn't invest in nine companies. Calstrs sold stock in a Russian and a Chinese oil company.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last year asked Ford Motor Co., Marathon Oil Corp. and six other companies to explain their activities in countries on the terrorism list.

The SEC asked Ford in a July 5 letter whether the company's ``reputation and share value'' were being compromised by its activities in Syria , Iran and Sudan . Ford said its business was limited and lawful.

Missouri , Georgia

Missouri has adopted a policy to require two state funds to divest from companies that do business with Iran , Sudan , North Korea and Syria . Georgia is also considering such legislation, and a bill will be introduced in Ohio next week.

Missouri State Treasurer Sarah Steelman said she made the decision after learning the state was using BNP Paribas, France 's biggest bank, to place its overnight money. It had been named as one of several European banks that lent $1 billion to Iran .

``We kicked them off our broker-dealer list and put in place policies that said we won't do business with companies that do business in Iran,'' she said.

In January, Steelman sent a letter to every state treasurer urging them to consider similar policies. ``This investment strategy provides an opportunity for many of us far from the front lines of the war on terrorism to do our part,'' she wrote.

This Wednesday, March 28 at 9 AM, the California State Assembly will hear testimony on Assembly Bill 221, a bi-partisan effort sponsored by Assemblyman Joel Anderson (R-San Diego) and Jose Solorio (D-Anaheim), that would divest California ’s public retirement funds from companies that do business with Iran .

This is an absolutely critical moment, where you can make a tremendous difference. Your action TODAY can help this bill pass. I am going to ask you below to do two very simple things .

The National Iranian American Council, a group led by Trita Parsi that consistently parrots the views of reformists in Tehran , has come out publicly AGAINST this bill. They want to rope in Western businesses as a pro-Tehran lobby and are pretending to be THE voice of the Iranian-American community.
You know this is not true. So here is your chance to stand up and be counted.

We need to present Iranian-Americans who SUPPORT this important measure, which I believe will contribute to dramatically escalating the pressure on the Tehran regime by forcing multinational corporations that support the regime with capital and technology to rethink their investments in Iran.

Your support is absolutely critical.

Here’s what you can do today:

1) Assemblyman Anderson needs you to email or fax brief letters of support for the legislation, mentioning your name and your organization. Please send them to his chief of staff, Chip Englander, at the following address:

Iranian-Americans care deeply about America, and about Iran . We strongly support your proposed legislation, Assembly Bill 221, that would stop California state pension funds from investing in companies that do business in Iran . We believe this legislation sends a powerful message to the clerical leadership in Tehran and to large corporations that terror does not pay.

Thank-you again for your good work on this important issue.

Signed,
XXX
DON’T FORGET THE NAME OF YOUR ORGANIZATION.

IF ANY OF YOU CAN GO TO SACRAMENTO TO TESTIFY IN PERSON, PLEASE LET ME OR CHIP ENGLANDER KNOW IMMEDIATELY.

2) Call to express your support with these key members of the Assembly. The Public Safety committee has just six members: four votes are need to keep this bill alive.

If the Speaker supports this bill it will pass no question. If he opposes it it will likely die. He loves being significant and loves getting calls.

€ Jose Solorio (D-Anaheim)
Office – 916/319-2069
Cell – 714-514-6233

Solorio is Chairman of Public Safety and is a Democrat who has co-authored the bill. He supports it, but a “thank you,” would be wonderful.

€ Gene Mullin (D-San Mateo)
Office – 916/319-2019
Cell – 650/867-5166

Mullin is on the PERS Committee and will vote on the bill. He could be one of the two votes we need to pass the bill. He has verbally told Assemblyman Anderson that he likes the bill, but has not committed to vote for it.

Torrico is on the PERS Committee and will vote on the bill. He could be one of the two votes we need to pass the bill. He has verbally told Assemblyman Anderson that he likes the bill, but has not committed to vote for it. YOUR CALL CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE.

Hernandez is on the PERS Committee and will vote on the bill. He could be one of the two votes we need to pass the bill. He is a complete toss up on the bill and can go either way. He says he wants to check with leadership.

Fiona Ma is the Majority Whip for the Democrats and is a co-author of our bill. She supports it, but a “thank you,” would be wonderful.

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:

I testified in Annapolis , Maryland last week in support of similar legislation for Maryland . As I wrote in a commentary last Friday for Frontpage magazine:

“The pitch is very simple: Do you want your pension fund invested in companies who prop up Iran ? There are lots of other places you can invest. Why choose companies helping countries such as Iran whose leaders state publicly they want to destroy America ?”

As an Iranian, it was with pride and admiration that I witnessed the courage my countrymen spontaneously demonstrated upon learning of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on America. On that day, thousands of Iranians took to the streets of Tehran, marching and holding candle light vigils through the night in sympathy and solidarity with the American people. While many around the world also showed their support on that terrible day, doing so in Iran was in direct defiance of the clerical oppressors of the Iranian people who continue to deny freedom, human rights and basic dignity in my homeland.

It is, of course, no secret that Iran’s clerical regime has long been one of the major state sponsors of global terror. While its fanaticism and support for global militancy makes this regime a threat to all, it is my compatriots who are the first real victims of the regime’s violence and terror as evident in the regime’s consistent top ranking among the most flagrant violators of human rights.

Just a few weeks ago, the regime brutally crushed a peaceful demonstration by striking teachers seeking back pay and better wages. Their thugs used clubs to break up the protest and attack the demonstrators, most of whom were women. Earlier this month, the regime violently dispersed another peaceful demonstration in Tehran, slashing the bodies and breaking the skulls of Iranian woman, young and old, who were simply marking the international day for women’s rights. Sadly, such ruthless brutality is not isolated in Iran today. Several months earlier, the world watched in horror as the regime used an iron fist to bust, arrest, torture and slash the tongue of union leaders as Tehran bus drivers went on strike for better wages.

These cycles of bloody repression are all too common in Iran, and indeed have been since the advent of the clerical regime in 1979. While the United Nations is now ready to stand together against the regime’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, I continue to call upon the good-hearted and freedom loving people of the world to pay a higher measure of attention to the viciousness of this regime against its own people. For if it were not for domestic oppression, Iranians would rise up against this theocracy and the world would no longer have to worry about terrorism or weapons of mass destructions from Iran.

Mr. Speaker, I am writing you in support of the Iran divestment legislation (AB 221) calling for the divesting of your state’s public retirement funds from businesses benefiting the suppressive militant clerical regime of Iran. This act will hearten Iranians by demonstrating Californian’s solidarity with their plight and national struggle against tyranny, injustice and suppression. Just as men and women of conscience around the world employed similar tactics and stood arm-in-arm against South Africa’s evil apartheid in the 1980s, I am asking the good people of your great state to set a moral example and fuel the hopes of my compatriots about the good that can come from such acts of conscience.

As an advocate of a campaign of non-violent defiance against the clerical regime, I have repeatedly rejected the option of violence and war against my homeland. Instead, I have called on the international community to side with the Iranian people as they strive to bring about a democratic alternative to the current autocracy ruling them. The Iran Divestment Legislation will be a shining example and a great way to demonstrate solidarity with 70 million Iranians seeking freedom, democracy and a better life. Through the democratic institutions with which your great state is blessed, please send a powerful message to my compatriots about freedom and justice.

As Iranians striving for the freedom of our country and countrymen from the hands of this terrorist regime for the past twenty-eight years we strongly support your proposed legislation, Assembly Bill 221, that would stop California state pension funds from investing in companies that do business in Iran. We believe this legislation sends a powerful message to the clerical leadership in Tehran and to large corporations that terror does not pay.

If anyone still believes in the utility of talking to the Tehran regime, they should read the revealing comments made to the press by the Iranian and the U.S. ambassadors to Baghdad, just minutes after concluding what were billed as “historic” talks between the two governments on Monday.

While the talks had “proceeded positively,” U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker told reporters that he had emphasized to the Iranians the need for concrete action on the ground.

"I laid out before the Iranians a number of our direct, specific concerns about their behavior in Iraq, their support for militias that are fighting both the Iraqi security forces and coalition forces," Crocker said.

"The fact (is) that a lot of the explosives and ammunitions that are used by these groups are coming in from Iran ... Such activities ... need to cease and ... we would be looking for results," he added.

Across the city, Iran’s ambassador Hassan Kazemi-Qomi just thumbed his nose. “We don’t take the American accusations seriously,” he said. It was the United States which bore “sore responsibility” for the violence in Iraq, he opined, noting that Iraq’s infrastructure had been “demolished by the American invaders.”

If the U.S. was really serious about helping Iraq, he suggested that we take up Iran’s offer to train and equip Iraqi security forces. (That way, the Iranians won’t have to steal Iraqi police uniforms any longer when they want to kill us).

“We are hopeful that Washington’s realistic approach to the current issues in Iraq – by confessing its failed policy in Iraq and the region and by showing a determination in changing the policy – guarantees success of the talks and possible future talks,” he said.

So there you have it. If the United States wishes to have further talks with the Iranian regime, we must first admit 1) that our policies were wrong, and 2) that they have failed. Once that’s over with, hey – whatever you like!

I don’t know how deaf you have to be not to hear the message. Lee Hamilton, are you listening?

As the Democrat half of the Baker-Hamilton commission that promoted talks with Tehran last fall, Lee Hamilton now finds himself in the embarrassing situation of seeing the fruits of the policy he promoted so arduously.

Just talk to Tehran, he said. All they want is a little respect. They want a secure, integral Iraq, just as we do, he claimed. We have lots of things in common. Lots!

I give Mr. Hamilton credit for drinking his own Kool-Aid. As director of the Woodrow Wilson Center, a center-left think tank in Washington, he thought the Iranians were so eager for talks that he agreed to send the head of his center’s Iran programs to his native land, despite all the flap over the Iraq Study Group report.

And so Haleh Esfandiareh, a former Communist (Tudeh) Party militant, who has long advocated “dialogue” between the U.S. and Iran, went to Tehran early this year, ostensibly to see her ailing mother.

When she tried to leave, regime thugs intercepted her taxi, “stole” her passport, and forced her to request a replacement travel document from the authorities. That led to her arrest, and recent “indictment” in Iran on charges of espionage.

(For the record, I place the word “indictment” in quotation marks because the so-called “rule of law” in Iran is an arbitrary system that obeys the whims and orders of the ruling elite, not any objective legal standard created with the consent of the governed).

Now, just to be clear about what’s going on. Haleh Esfandiareh has absolutely zero to do with any purported U.S. government program to promote a “velvet revolution” in Iran, as intelligence minister Hossein Mohseni-Ejei has claimed. Would that it were so!

On the contrary. She and many other left-wing Iran “experts” in Washington have been promoting closer ties between Tehran and Washington, not confrontation.

So it’s more than ironic that the regime should arrest her. Seriously, if there were justice in this world, they would have picked up me or Michael Ledeen, or any number of Iranians who are working hard to organize women’s groups and student groups and labor organizations inside Iran, to stand up for their rights.

The Tehran regime continues to dangle “talk of talks” to buy more time to finish their nuclear weapons development, and are taking U.S. hostages to use as bargaining chips. Meanwhile, they have expanded their terrorist networks inside Iraq, and are supplying Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs), money and conventional weapons to both Sunni and Shiite insurgent groups. (And finally, the U.S. military is being allowed by the Pentagon to say this in public).

My sources in Iran tell me that the regime plans to dramatically scale up the terrorist attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces this summer, and is contemplating ordering Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army to launch terrorist attacks in Kuwait, the first time that Sadr will have used his fighters outside of Iraq.

So should we continue to talk to Tehran?

Well, okay – but only if our diplomats can do so without buying every over-priced carpet they are offered.

(Ambassador Ryan Crocker is someone who has got his priorities straight. After all, he knows a few things about Iranian terrorism, having received his baptism by fire on April 18, 1983 in Beirut, when Hezbollah operative Imad Mugniyeh blew up the U.S. embassy. That’s where I first met Crocker, who was still brushing dust off his clothes and his hair from the explosion).

Iran’s goal is clear. They seek to defeat us in Iraq, and to prevent Iraq from emerging as an strong, independent, federal state. Further down the road, they seek to drive the United States from the Persian Gulf, smash Israel, and ultimately destroy us..

To achieve these ends, they are furiously developing nuclear weapons. Even the IAEA has recognized Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions, although IAEA Secretary General Mohammed ElBaradei now says that we should give up trying to prevent them from going nuclear.

He said that Iran’s recent progress in uranium enrichment should convince us that Iran’s nuclear program has become a fait accompli, and that efforts to make Iran pay a price for defying UN Security Council resolutions aimed at stopping their nuclear program have been “overtaken by events.”

That was too much even for the Washington Post, who chided ElBaradei this past Sunday for his response to Iran’s “aggressive and illegal behavior.”

“[W]e can only marvel at the nerve of Mr. ElBaradei, an unelected international civil servant whose mission is to implement the decisions of the Security Council -- and who proposes to destroy the council's authority by having it simply drop binding resolutions,” the Post editorial board wrote.

The Washington Post and many of the cooler heads in the foreign policy establishment now believe “there is no better alternative than returning to the United Nations Security Council” for further sanctions on Iran.

While that may be necessary, a mere “ratcheting up” of sanctions will not be sufficient to keep Tehran’s murderers from striking again. I mentioned some of the stronger steps the UN could take, should the U.S. press hard enough, in this space recently.

But there is a better alternative, and it’s staring us right in the face. And that’s helping the growing pro-democracy movement inside Iran.

Even as the Europeans continue to meet with Iranian government emissary Ali Larijani over their nuclear program later this week, it’s important to remember that economic leverage, however severe, will not deter this regime from building the bomb.

“While the United States and the West are right to focus on terrorism and the regime’s nuclear programs, if they ignore the pro-democracy movement and human rights, they won’t get the results they want,” says Dr. Hossein Bagherzadeh, a spokesman for Solidarity Iran, a new Iranian coordinating council that aims to connect opposition groups in exile with activists working inside Iran.

The choice between appeasement and war is as bad as ever. But unlike the Washington Post, which believes that sanctions alone provide the alternative, I believe we have a better option.

Solidarity Iran will be holding its third conference in two weeks time in Paris, when it plans to announce a plan of action that represents the first serious step toward forming a united Iranian opposition coalition in twenty-eight years.

Stay tuned next week for more.

Kenneth R. Timmerman was nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize along with John Bolton for his work on Iran. He is Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, and author of Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran (Crown Forum: 2005).

Rarely have so many journalists, politicians and commentators so totally missed a headline. There are now five American hostages in Iran. Each case has been largely treated by itself, almost as if it were an oddity, something requiring a special explanation, instead of another piece in a luminously clear pattern whose meaning should be intuitively obvious to us all.

The five American hostages are:

Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington and the wife of the distinguished historian Shaul Bakash;

Parnaz Azima, a journalist for radio Farda, the Farsi-language component of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty;

Ali Shakeri, a founding board member at the University of California, Irvine’s Center for Citizen Peacebuilding;

Kian Tajbakhsh, a consultant working for George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

Robert A. Levinson, a former FBI officer reportedly investigating tobacco smuggling on behalf of a private client. He disappeared after he flew to Iran’s Kish Island in March.

The two women — Esfandiari and Azima — were regular visitors to Iran, and both were visiting their mothers at the time of their arrests.

Iranian and Iranian-supported terrorists have been trying unsuccessfully to capture Americans in Iraq for some time (a hostage-taking operation failed last September, for example), but they found that the Americans fought back. They have now snatched unarmed Americans within Iranian borders. Several of them have been charged with espionage. Esfandiari has been accused of an additional crime: being married to a Jew. In the words of a website closely tied to President Ahmadinejad, Esfandiari is “married to Shaul Bakhash, a Jew, (and) is one of the leading figures in the international Zionist lobby planning the overthrow of the Iranian regime, including the Zionist regime’s plans to attack Iran.”

Actually, Esfandiari is one of the leading figures in the intellectual/scholarly opposition to the Bush administration, Azima works for an organization that has been a feckless voice of confusion and a frequent critic of American policy in the Middle East, and Tajbakhsh and Shakeri are advocates of dialogue with Iran. I don’t know anything about Levinson’s politics or religion.

Not that the actual views of the hostages have anything to do with their plight; they are hostages simply because they are Americans.

The Americans were taken hostage for the same reasons the regime has routinely taken foreign hostages from the first year of its existence: to resolve internal power struggles, to demonstrate to the Iranian people the hopelessness of their condition by directly challenging the infidels to do anything about the humiliation of their countrymen, and to impose their will on a Western world the mullahs view as feckless and paralyzed. When the American embassy was overrun in the fall of 1979, Khomeini famously proclaimed that the Americans “can’t do a thing,” and today the regime is trying to show that neither the Americans nor the Brits (five more of whom were taken hostage in the past couple of days) can do anything to challenge the mullahcracy.

Political Civil War
The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suffers from inoperable cancer and has already outlived his doctors’ prognosis. The political war over his successor has been raging for several months between partisans of the country’s two most prominent political figures: Ahmadinejad and former president Hashemi Rafsanjani. Two months ago Rafsanjani went to Qom, the city of the grand ayatollahs, in an attempt to gain the support of the leading clerics, at which time he tried to convince them to name a successor even before the Supreme Leader’s demise. Nothing came of it, nor did anything come of the much-ballyhooed efforts to “impeach” Ahmadinejad or shorten his term. The latest dustup came over the talks with the Americans in Baghdad, which were violently condemned by Ahmadinejad’s followers.

The wave of hostage-taking undoubtedly plays a role in this political war, for it demonstrates the great strength of the hardliners around Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, and weakens Rafsanjani’s standing with the clerical elite.

Message to the Iranian People
Two of the American hostages — Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh — have been charged with attempting to subvert the Islamic Republic and organize a “soft revolution” against the regime. At the same time, the mullahs have launched a new wave of political repression against students, teachers, women, intellectuals and, most recently, scientists. The information ministry, a.k.a. the secret intelligence service, recently declared that any Iranian who attended overseas conferences would automatically fall under suspicion of cooperating with foreign-espionage operations. All these measures are symptomatic of a regime that knows it is hated by most Iranians, and fears a popular uprising.

It is a basic tenet of the Iranians’ worldview that nothing of great significance will occur in the world without American support, which in practice means they are unlikely to launch a revolution until and unless they see signs of such support. It also means that the mullahs constantly seek to demonstrate that America is impotent, thus hoping to discourage potential challenges from below. What better way than to take American (and British) hostages, and show that the United States (and Her Majesty’s government) are powerless to do anything about it?

War Against the Infidels
Finally, there is the ongoing war against America, which has been waged from Tehran since 1979, and which the mullahs firmly believe they are winning. They are supremely confident that the United States will be driven out of Iraq — largely by terrorists armed, funded, trained, and guided by Tehran — by the end of Bush’s tenure. They are similarly optimistic about Afghanistan, where the Karzai government and NATO military officers are increasingly outspoken about Iran’s role in arming both the Taliban and terrorists associated with Gulbadin Hekmatyar. As Amir Taheri has recently pointed out, the Iranian hand is manifest in lethal activities from Afghanistan to Lebanon, Iraq, and Gaza. The capture of American hostages is an integral part of that strategy, aiming blow after blow against the perceived tottering giant whose fall will open the floodgates of jihad against the infidel West.

The mullahs believe that their aggression is divinely sanctioned, that the violence they are unleashing on the region will hasten the return of the 12th Imam, and thus the days of the final judgment of all mankind. Such people cannot be reasoned out of their mission, whatever the utopians at the Department of State may believe.

Messianic movements of the sort led by the Islamic Republic can inspire masses of people, but they are uniquely vulnerable, because any dramatic setback raises a frightening question: Has divine support suddenly been removed? It follows that we should strain to defeat them, primarily by supporting their own gravediggers, the people of Iran.

Alas, not even that celebrated warmonger, George W. Bush, has the will to support democratic revolution in Iran, or even to say the simple words “we want regime change in Tehran.” His secretary of State insists that we do not want regime change, but only a change in the behavior of the regime. Which is rather like saying that the best way to fight evil is by reading the Psalms. Instead of vigorously defending the Americans outrageously arrested and incarcerated in Iran, we opened a new round of negotiations with their captors, and the killers of our troops in Iraq, on Memorial Day. Yes, there are American warships in the Gulf, but no one in his right mind expects them to do anything other than show the flag.

But then, nobody even seems to have noticed the existence of a hostage crisis. Why would anyone expect the American government to do anything about it?

Iranian activists from a broad cross-section of opposition groups and ethnic communities met in Paris for a historic three-day conference over the weekend, to launch a new movement aimed at stepping up the fight against the Tehran regime.

The new movement, Solidarity Iran, aims to build bridges between Iranians living in exile and the pro-democracy movement inside Iran, and to build support for the struggle of the Iranian people in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

Sanctions by the international community and by the United States will not be enough to change the behavior of the Tehran regime, or to convince Iran's leaders to suspend their nuclear programs, the activists believe.

"You won't see a significant change -- regime change, or behavior change, whichever you like -- until the external pressure becomes internal pressure by the Iranian people," said Hossein Bagher Zadeh, a spokesman for the group.

Ultimately, the new movement hopes "to supplant the theocracy and bring democracy in Iran," said Shahriar Ahy, a former advisor to Reza Pahlavi, who was elected to a 20-member coordinating council on Sunday.

"Solidarity Iran is a struggle to connect a thousand different parties to each other," he said. "We are teachers, we are women, we are young people. We are Iranian workers seeking better working conditions. We are Kurds, Balouch, Lurs, and Azeris. We are from the left and the right. We are all Iranians, united in the purpose of bringing democracy and the respect of human rights to Iran. That is Solidarity Iran," he said.

Iran's bitterly divided opposition parties have tried for years to build coalitions, but until now these efforts have failed to produce any tangible outcome.

For many years, the lack of an organized alternative to the Tehran regime had convinced the United States and Europe to seek to moderate the behavior of the Iran's ruling clerics through direct negotiations and incentives. When that effort failed, and concern over Iran's nuclear weapons program grew, the West began gradually to ratchet up economic pressure and financial sanctions.

Most of the nearly 200 participants agreed that the Paris conference was a "historic" occasion, because it marked the first time that well-known leaders from established opposition groups and from Iran's diverse ethnic communities have declared their intention to work together against the regime, instead of fighting each other.

"We have a lot of divisions, but we have one thing in common. We all hate this regime and want to get rid of it," said Amir Farshad Ibrahimi, a former aid to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was jailed after making an underground film documenting the regime's support for international terrorist organizations.

For some of the ethnic leaders, it was the first time they had ever networked with their "Persian" counterparts.

"I found here other hearts that beat with ours," said Azeri activist Dr. Zia Sadr-ol Ashrafi, an agronomist now living in Canada. "This gives us hope we can work for a common future."

Ashrafi reminded the conference that Iran was a multi-cultural nation, with well over 50 percent of the population coming from non-Persian backgrounds.

Iran's 70 million population includes some 23 million Azeri (Turkish) citizens, 22 million Persians, 4 million Kurds, 3.5 million Lurs, as well as Arabs, Balouch, Turkomans and a large number of tribes, he said.

"Since the movement began in Berlin nearly two years ago, I, a monarchist, have been having vodka and kebob with people who took up arms against the former shah," Parham said. "The old days of fighting each other are gone. And we owe it to this process."

One of those former opponents of the shah, Kambiz Roosta, helped to organize the Paris conference. A prominent socialist in his youth, Roosta helped devise the Solidarity Iran formula of connecting domestic opposition groups and social groups to their counterparts outside Iran.

Solidarity Iran is different from other Iranian opposition groups in that it is not a political party, nor does it represent a particular ideology.

"It allows the various groups and political parties to keep their identity, with individual leaders joining Solidarity Iran in a personal capacity," said Iman Foroutan, another member of the newly-elected coordinating council.

Foroutan, who runs the California-based Iran of Tomorrow Movement, has been recruiting cells of activists inside Iran. "The idea is to come up with a grand plan of civil disobedience and economic action that will allow people to go out and do their own thing, while coordinating all these actions," he said.

Messages of support for the new movement came pouring in over the weekend from activists inside Iran.

Ibrahimi read a letter sent by more than a dozen political prisoners in Iranian jails, who asked that their names be read aloud, even though they knew they would be punished for it.

Mohsen Zarafzadeh, who fled Iran after he was released from jail a few years ago, read a similar letter of support from jailed student leader Hesmatollah Tabarzadeh.

A prominent women's activist inside Iran connected to a friend at the conference through a special computer program that allows users to talk over the Internet without detection. "She said she was willing to serve on the newly-elected Coordinating committee," the friend said.

Kian Sanjari, a well-known Iranian blogger who was forced to flee Iran recently and is currently hiding in a neighboring country, called on a cellphone to see if he could connect as well, to post portions of the speeches on his blog.

The 20-member coordinating council, elected this Sunday, will meet in the near future to select a seven-member Executive Committee, as well as a working group to hammer out a new national compact with Iran's ethnic minorities.

Hamza Bayezid, the representative of Congress of Nationalities for a Federal Iran, said his 16 member organizations will wait until the details of the national compact can be negotiated before formally joining the new movement.

In an exclusive interview just after the conference ended, the deputy secretary general the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran told NewsMax that the Congress was hopeful the negotiations would be successful.

While some Iranian nationalist organizations feared the ethnic Kurds and other minorities wanted to separate from Iran, Dr. Hassan Sharafi told NewsMax that his party and the Congress of Nationalities were dedicated to a united Iran.

The Paris meeting did not meet our prerequisite for further engagement.

espandyar wrote:

http://www.marzeporgohar.org/index.php?l=1&cat=17&scat=31&artid=1234

The Paris gathering had good intentions to bring different groups closer together even though the very same concept was the main reason for lack of real progress.

Unfortunately large gathering tends to yield little or no result at all due to the diversity of the opinions and differences on key issues such as federalism, ethnicities Vs nationalities and the method of overthrowing the Islamic regime.

The Paris meeting was no exception, the individuals and groups with different agendas and different approaches made the meeting similar to the other ones in the past. The lack of presence of the new generation was also noticeable.

There were however some good people with good intentions who gathered and made good effort to make progress but when the agendas and approaches don’t mach there will be little result.

The exiled groups should be representative of Iranian people inside Iran. Religious and ethnic representation must be present within political parties and groups. In other words political parties and groups should be mirror reflections of the people of Iran.

To have self-made nationality groups who supposedly representing “nationalities” within Iran should be outside the frame work of any gathering. To spend time and energy to educate such individuals about the Iranian history and identity of Iranian ethnicities are useless and time consuming process that will yield no result. Such groups receive their lectures from foreign entities. To have such individuals presented at Iranian gathering will result only in lack of progress while giving validity to their presence.

Another obstacle for progress is the presence of former Islamic republic officials and collaborators.
Islamic Republic officials are committing crime against humanity on regular bases and their former collaborators and officials are subjects to future national courts. However there is always room for the low-level collaborators to join the opposition by following
guide for purification for regime officials. An example of such letter can be viewed
here. Possibilities to reach an agreement of any sort with groups and individuals who do not share the same agenda are minimal and time consuming and time is a luxury that we don’t have.

Marzeporgohar Party does not exclude cooperation with other groups as long as some key elements are respected:
1. Overthrowing regime by a popular revolution
2. Establishment of Secular and democratic constitution
3. Sovereignty of Iranian borders
4. Central government represented by Iranians for Iranians regardless of ethnicity and religion.

Naturally the above articles must be treated in depth with details. However the key issues must be in tact while discussing the details and approach. It is only with common agenda /platform successful meeting with tangible results can occur.

The Paris meeting did not meet our prerequisite for further engagement.

Iranian activists from a broad cross-section of opposition groups and ethnic communities met in Paris for a historic three-day conference over the weekend, to launch a new movement aimed at stepping up the fight against the Tehran regime.

The new movement, Solidarity Iran, aims to build bridges between Iranians living in exile and the pro-democracy movement inside Iran, and to build support for the struggle of the Iranian people in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

Sanctions by the international community and by the United States will not be enough to change the behavior of the Tehran regime, or to convince Iran's leaders to suspend their nuclear programs, the activists believe.

"You won't see a significant change -- regime change, or behavior change, whichever you like -- until the external pressure becomes internal pressure by the Iranian people," said Hossein Bagher Zadeh, a spokesman for the group.

Ultimately, the new movement hopes "to supplant the theocracy and bring democracy in Iran," said Shahriar Ahy, a former advisor to Reza Pahlavi, who was elected to a 20-member coordinating council on Sunday.

"Solidarity Iran is a struggle to connect a thousand different parties to each other," he said. "We are teachers, we are women, we are young people. We are Iranian workers seeking better working conditions. We are Kurds, Balouch, Lurs, and Azeris. We are from the left and the right. We are all Iranians, united in the purpose of bringing democracy and the respect of human rights to Iran. That is Solidarity Iran," he said.

Iran's bitterly divided opposition parties have tried for years to build coalitions, but until now these efforts have failed to produce any tangible outcome.

For many years, the lack of an organized alternative to the Tehran regime had convinced the United States and Europe to seek to moderate the behavior of the Iran's ruling clerics through direct negotiations and incentives. When that effort failed, and concern over Iran's nuclear weapons program grew, the West began gradually to ratchet up economic pressure and financial sanctions.

Most of the nearly 200 participants agreed that the Paris conference was a "historic" occasion, because it marked the first time that well-known leaders from established opposition groups and from Iran's diverse ethnic communities have declared their intention to work together against the regime, instead of fighting each other.

"We have a lot of divisions, but we have one thing in common. We all hate this regime and want to get rid of it," said Amir Farshad Ibrahimi, a former aid to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneiwho was jailed after making an underground film documenting the regime's support for international terrorist organizations.

For some of the ethnic leaders, it was the first time they had ever networked with their "Persian" counterparts.

"I found here other hearts that beat with ours," said Azeri activist Dr. Zia Sadr-ol Ashrafi, an agronomist now living in Canada. "This gives us hope we can work for a common future."

Ashrafi reminded the conference that Iran was a multi-cultural nation, with well over 50 percent of the population coming from non-Persian backgrounds.

Iran's 70 million population includes some 23 million Azeri (Turkish) citizens, 22 million Persians, 4 million Kurds, 3.5 million Lurs, as well as Arabs, Balouch, Turkomans and a large number of tribes, he said.

"Since the movement began in Berlin nearly two years ago, I, a monarchist, have been having vodka and kebob with people who took up arms against the former shah," Parham said. "The old days of fighting each other are gone. And we owe it to this process."

One of those former opponents of the shah, Kambiz Roosta, helped to organize the Paris conference. A prominent socialist in his youth, Roosta helped devise the Solidarity Iran formula of connecting domestic opposition groups and social groups to their counterparts outside Iran.

Solidarity Iran is different from other Iranian opposition groups in that it is not a political party, nor does it represent a particular ideology.

"It allows the various groups and political parties to keep their identity, with individual leaders joining Solidarity Iran in a personal capacity," said Iman Foroutan, another member of the newly-elected coordinating council.

Foroutan, who runs the California-based Iran of Tomorrow Movement, has been recruiting cells of activists inside Iran. "The idea is to come up with a grand plan of civil disobedience and economic action that will allow people to go out and do their own thing, while coordinating all these actions," he said.

Messages of support for the new movement came pouring in over the weekend from activists inside Iran.

Ibrahimi read a letter sent by more than a dozen political prisoners in Iranian jails, who asked that their names be read aloud, even though they knew they would be punished for it.

Mohsen Zarafzadeh, who fled Iran after he was released from jail a few years ago, read a similar letter of support from jailed student leader Hesmatollah Tabarzadeh.

A prominent women's activist inside Iran connected to a friend at the conference through a special computer program that allows users to talk over the Internet without detection. "She said she was willing to serve on the newly-elected Coordinating committee," the friend said.

Kian Sanjari, a well-known Iranian blogger who was forced to flee Iran recently and is currently hiding in a neighboring country, called on a cellphone to see if he could connect as well, to post portions of the speeches on his blog.

The 20-member coordinating council, elected this Sunday, will meet in the near future to select a seven-member Executive Committee, as well as a working group to hammer out a new national compact with Iran's ethnic minorities.

Hamza Bayezid, the representative of Congress of Nationalities for a Federal Iran, said his 16 member organizations will wait until the details of the national compact can be negotiated before formally joining the new movement.

In an exclusive interview just after the conference ended, the deputy secretary general the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran told NewsMax that the Congress was hopeful the negotiations would be successful.

While some Iranian nationalist organizations feared the ethnic Kurds and other minorities wanted to separate from Iran, Dr. Hassan Sharafi told NewsMax that his party and the Congress of Nationalities were dedicated to a united Iran.

I truly believe, allowing anyone that has had an active role in the regime, to negotiate the future of Iran is a huge mistake & immoral, Betrayal to all that were murdered by this regime. After the war Germany did not bring in ex nazis and SS officers to the negotiating table.

Last edited by blank on Mon Jun 25, 2007 2:21 pm; edited 1 time in total

Iranian activists from a broad cross-section of opposition groups and ethnic communities met in Paris for a historic three-day conference over the weekend, to launch a new movement aimed at stepping up the fight against the Tehran regime.

The new movement, Solidarity Iran, aims to build bridges between Iranians living in exile and the pro-democracy movement inside Iran, and to build support for the struggle of the Iranian people in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

Sanctions by the international community and by the United States will not be enough to change the behavior of the Tehran regime, or to convince Iran's leaders to suspend their nuclear programs, the activists believe.

"You won't see a significant change -- regime change, or behavior change, whichever you like -- until the external pressure becomes internal pressure by the Iranian people," said Hossein Bagher Zadeh, a spokesman for the group.

Ultimately, the new movement hopes "to supplant the theocracy and bring democracy in Iran," said Shahriar Ahy, a former advisor to Reza Pahlavi, who was elected to a 20-member coordinating council on Sunday.

"Solidarity Iran is a struggle to connect a thousand different parties to each other," he said. "We are teachers, we are women, we are young people. We are Iranian workers seeking better working conditions. We are Kurds, Balouch, Lurs, and Azeris. We are from the left and the right. We are all Iranians, united in the purpose of bringing democracy and the respect of human rights to Iran. That is Solidarity Iran," he said.

Iran's bitterly divided opposition parties have tried for years to build coalitions, but until now these efforts have failed to produce any tangible outcome.

For many years, the lack of an organized alternative to the Tehran regime had convinced the United States and Europe to seek to moderate the behavior of the Iran's ruling clerics through direct negotiations and incentives. When that effort failed, and concern over Iran's nuclear weapons program grew, the West began gradually to ratchet up economic pressure and financial sanctions.

Most of the nearly 200 participants agreed that the Paris conference was a "historic" occasion, because it marked the first time that well-known leaders from established opposition groups and from Iran's diverse ethnic communities have declared their intention to work together against the regime, instead of fighting each other.

"We have a lot of divisions, but we have one thing in common. We all hate this regime and want to get rid of it," said Amir Farshad Ibrahimi, a former aid to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneiwho was jailed after making an underground film documenting the regime's support for international terrorist organizations.

For some of the ethnic leaders, it was the first time they had ever networked with their "Persian" counterparts.

"I found here other hearts that beat with ours," said Azeri activist Dr. Zia Sadr-ol Ashrafi, an agronomist now living in Canada. "This gives us hope we can work for a common future."

Ashrafi reminded the conference that Iran was a multi-cultural nation, with well over 50 percent of the population coming from non-Persian backgrounds.

Iran's 70 million population includes some 23 million Azeri (Turkish) citizens, 22 million Persians, 4 million Kurds, 3.5 million Lurs, as well as Arabs, Balouch, Turkomans and a large number of tribes, he said.

"Since the movement began in Berlin nearly two years ago, I, a monarchist, have been having vodka and kebob with people who took up arms against the former shah," Parham said. "The old days of fighting each other are gone. And we owe it to this process."

One of those former opponents of the shah, Kambiz Roosta, helped to organize the Paris conference. A prominent socialist in his youth, Roosta helped devise the Solidarity Iran formula of connecting domestic opposition groups and social groups to their counterparts outside Iran.

Solidarity Iran is different from other Iranian opposition groups in that it is not a political party, nor does it represent a particular ideology.

"It allows the various groups and political parties to keep their identity, with individual leaders joining Solidarity Iran in a personal capacity," said Iman Foroutan, another member of the newly-elected coordinating council.

Foroutan, who runs the California-based Iran of Tomorrow Movement, has been recruiting cells of activists inside Iran. "The idea is to come up with a grand plan of civil disobedience and economic action that will allow people to go out and do their own thing, while coordinating all these actions," he said.

Messages of support for the new movement came pouring in over the weekend from activists inside Iran.

Ibrahimi read a letter sent by more than a dozen political prisoners in Iranian jails, who asked that their names be read aloud, even though they knew they would be punished for it.

Mohsen Zarafzadeh, who fled Iran after he was released from jail a few years ago, read a similar letter of support from jailed student leader Hesmatollah Tabarzadeh.

A prominent women's activist inside Iran connected to a friend at the conference through a special computer program that allows users to talk over the Internet without detection. "She said she was willing to serve on the newly-elected Coordinating committee," the friend said.

Kian Sanjari, a well-known Iranian blogger who was forced to flee Iran recently and is currently hiding in a neighboring country, called on a cellphone to see if he could connect as well, to post portions of the speeches on his blog.

The 20-member coordinating council, elected this Sunday, will meet in the near future to select a seven-member Executive Committee, as well as a working group to hammer out a new national compact with Iran's ethnic minorities.

Hamza Bayezid, the representative of Congress of Nationalities for a Federal Iran, said his 16 member organizations will wait until the details of the national compact can be negotiated before formally joining the new movement.

In an exclusive interview just after the conference ended, the deputy secretary general the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran told NewsMax that the Congress was hopeful the negotiations would be successful.

While some Iranian nationalist organizations feared the ethnic Kurds and other minorities wanted to separate from Iran, Dr. Hassan Sharafi told NewsMax that his party and the Congress of Nationalities were dedicated to a united Iran.

I truly believe, allowing anyone that has had an active role in the regime, to negotiate the future of Iran is a total mistake & immoral, Betrayal to all that were murdered by this regime. After the war Germany did not bring in ex nazis and SS officers to the negotiating table.

[edit] Life and Education
Kaveh Farrokh was born in Athens, Greece, and is of Ossetian and Azeri descent. From an early age he exhibited a keen aptitude and interest in history. His talents were first recognized in 1980, during his senior year at the Institut Chateaubriand in Cannes, France, where he was granted the Lenoardo Da Vinci prize for high achievement in history from the mayor. Dr. Farrokh went on to obtain his undergraduate arts degree in May 1985 and his Ph.D. on September 24, 2001 from the University of British Columbia, where he specialized on the cognitive and linguistic processes of Persian speakers. He married Mahnaz Momeni in 2002 and currently resides in Vancouver, Canada.

As a result of his life experience, education, and studies of linguistics, Dr. Farrokh now speaks English, German, French, and Persian. He also has a working understanding of at least three living languages, Provençal, Italian, Dutch, and Kurmanji Kurdish, as well as two ancient languages, Latin and Pahlavi. He has also lived in and traveled to several countries, including West Germany, East Germany, France, England, Belgium, Italy, Russia, and Iran.

[edit] Works
Dr. Farrokh has been writing since the early 1990's and has contributed articles to internationally recognized academic journals such as the International Journal of the Sociology of Language and chapters for books such as the International Book of Dyslexia: A Cross-Language Comparison and Practice Guide (Wiley, 2004).[1]

He has lectured at the University of British Columbia's Persian Legacy series and has provided seminars at Stanford University's WAIS (World Association of International Studies) conference.[2] He is now a member of WAIS. The History Channel has also interviewed and filmed Dr. Farrokh on the topic of technology in ancient Persia (due to appear in October 2006). He also serves as a member of the Persian Gulf Preservation Society.[3] Kaveh Farrokh currently teaches sessionally at the University of British Columbia's Continuing Studies Division.

[edit] Articles
The 300 Movie:Separating Fact From Fiction
The Alexander Movie: How are Iranians and Greeks Portrayed?
Iranian Now-Ruz (New Year), Nissanu, and the 365 day Year
Pan-Arabism’s Legacy of Confrontation with Iran
British Arabism and the Bombings in Iran (Written for Asia Times, co-Authored with Mahan Abedin)
Pan-Turanianism Takes Aim at Azerbaijan: A Geopolitical Agenda
Interestingly, Dr. Farrokh was to have the above article published as a comprehensive textbook, however decided to forego print publication and post the entire text (along with 300 rare photos) for free on the internet.
Parthian is not Turkish

[edit] Books
Elite Sassanian Cavalry: 226-651 AD[4]: Dr. Farrokhs first book, which is the first to specifically discuss the Sassanian dyanasty's elite cavalry (Savaran). This text has outlined the specific Pahlavi terms of the Sassanian cavalry’s elite units (e.g. Gyanavaspar Peshmerga; Zhayedan, etc.), military tactics, insignia and pitched battles. The role of Iranian women in the Sassanian military system has also been emphasized. He also provided a presentation of his aforementioned book at Stanford University.[5]
At present, Dr. Farrokh has completed a new book for Osprey Publishing Press entitled Shadows in the Desert: Persia at War. The text will outline Persia’s contributions to world civilization in areas such as mythology, technology, sciences, literature, militaria, the arts, music, architecture and garments. Kaveh’s main aim is to promote the establishment of a permanent Iranian Studies department in Canadian and American universities.

I am compelled to send you this e-mail as I sense a real sense of urgency. As we speak, a whole new set of books questioning the veracity of Iran's historical existence are being published. There is a new one by Alireza Asgharzadeh.

Asgharzadeh profoundly dislikes Iran and his views are wholly consistent with those activists who wish to carve up Iran into small mini-states. His new book is entitled:

Iran and the Challenge of Diversity: Islamic Fundamentalism, Aryanist Racism, and Democratic Struggles

I just received a copy of the text through a friend who (like myself) is concerned. In a nutshell, Asgharzadeh uses Sociological theory and paradigms to make the following cases:

(1) Iran is an imaginary construct.

Asgharzadeh links the late Edward Said's "Orientalism" (which actually concerned itself mostly with Turco-Arab relations with the West) and claims that Iranian history as we know it is based on "Orientalist" scholarship - he labels these as "Aryanist" and "Indo-Europeanists". In a sweep (by attaching academic-style references - like Brenda Shaffer), he has labelled ALL of Indo-European scholarship as "racist" and "Orientalist". Interestingly, it seems as if Asgharzadeh is placing Sociological theory above anthropology, linguistics, and historiography; it is as if, Sociology alone is able to replace these other aforementioned disciplines. Here we see a case of ideology using "scientific" sociological theory to suppress other disciplines that produces data that contradict one's views.

(2) Asgharzadeh subscribes to the conspiracy theory that the ancient world fabricated the history of Iran.

Again, he relies on a small set of "historical references", but these are not primary sources. He makes no allusion to references in ancient Japan, Greece, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam - I also doubt if he reads Greek or Latin - he makes no references to the works of scholars such as Mazzini or Spatari (these are in Italian and not translated to English as of yet). He is also re-interpreting a select number of Greek and Roman references, among others. What is fascinating is that Asgharzadeh insists that the term "Aryan" is simply the application of western "Orientalist" scholars - yet fails to explain why the term keeps appearing in Greco-Roman sources such as Strabo, Herodotus or in archaeological sites such as Paikuli (Shapour I's inscriptions of victory against Rome).

(3) He promotes the notion that the vast Majority of Iranian Azarbaijanis, Kurds and Iranian Arabs wish to separate from Iran.

Using sociological theory (while failing to appreciate the science of historiography), Asgharzadeh fails to provide any hard data to back up his assertions. A number of preliminary surveys have found these assertions by Asghar-Zadeh to be untrue.

Not surprisingly, one of the "reviewers" of Asgharzadeh's book is Iran-hater Brenda Shaffer (see link to Amazon). Both Asghar-Zadeh and Shaffer have shot themselves in the foot. This is because both rely on the narratives (and creative fiction) of Nasser Pourpirar. You may wish to see the following link regarding Pourpirar in Wikipedia:

He claims that construction of Persepolis was never finished [11] and the Achaemenid dynasty whom he considers as a group of ancient barbarian Slavic invaders ended with Darius the Great, after they returned to their homeland in Eurasian steppes. The rest of the Achaemenid, Parthian, Sassanid, Tahirid, Ghaznavid, Seljuqid, and Samanid dynasties according to Pourpirar were fabricated by historians of mostly Jewish background as part of a Jewish conspiracy. [5]

This is fascinating. Brenda Shaffer (herself of Israeli descent) has often cited Pourpirar as "evidence" for her notions of questioning the legitimacy of Iran as state. It appears that in her zeal to discredit Iranian history, Shaffer is citing any source she can without carefully checking first. She (like Asghar-Zadeh) have endorsed the views of an anti-Jewish fanatic. Note Pourpirar's hatred of Iran and the Persian language (he was born in Tehran in 1940):

Regarding the importance of Arabic language for a predominantly Muslim country like Iran, he has stated that: "It is very unfortunate that we can not put the Persian language aside and replace it with the language of Koran. However the future of Iran is at the hand of Islamic Unity. Spreading Arabic language among Iranian youths and incorporating it more seriously into the education system [...] can make a foundation for such Islamic Unity."[10]

Pourpirar has reportedly praised Saddam Hussein, who followed the doctrines of Pan-Arabism and is disliked by Iranians and Kurds for killing millions of Iranians and Kurds, referring to Saddam as the "Great Arab hero" and the "symbol of resistance.[10] Pourpirar is quoted saying: "Saddam is a hero of the Islamic movement against Zionism and if he is killed, like any other POW, he is a martyr at the hands of infidels."[11]

Asgharzadeh also writes for the Newspapers of the Republic of azarbaijan. See the following sample below:

The Anatomy of Iranian Racism: Reflections on the Root Causes of South Azerbaijan’s Resistance Movement
Baku Today Newspaper

...

Asgharzadeh is in the Department of Sociology at York University. This is alarming. We are now getting more and more historical revisionists (harboring a political agenda sympathetic to ethnic-conflict discourse) being allowed to teach in western academic mileaus just as Iranian programs in history correspondingly decline. This vacuum is allowing for historical revisionism to accelerate.

Here is a small sample list of anti-Iran academics (there are many more):

Mehrdad Izady (Author of: Kurds: A Concise Handbook)
He has helped establish a "Kurdish Studies" (separate from the all-inclusive Iranian Studies which includes Kurdish studies) in the Czech Republic; [See LINK]

Brenda Shaffer (Author of: Borders and Bretheren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity)
Caspian Studies Program
Harvard University

There are many other venues being pushed into mainstream western academia aiming to reduce Iran's legacy (e.g. Arab Gulf Studies, Central Asian Studies, Azarbaijani Studies, etc.) thanks mainly to various lobbies harboring petroleum and geopolitical interests. The common aim of all of these "academics" and lobbies is to discredit Iran as a state and especially its history before Islam.

I am compelled to send you this e-mail as I sense a real sense of urgency. As we speak, a whole new set of books questioning the veracity of Iran's historical existence are being published. There is a new one by Alireza Asgharzadeh.

Asgharzadeh profoundly dislikes Iran and his views are wholly consistent with those activists who wish to carve up Iran into small mini-states. His new book is entitled:

Iran and the Challenge of Diversity: Islamic Fundamentalism, Aryanist Racism, and Democratic Struggles

I just received a copy of the text through a friend who (like myself) is concerned. In a nutshell, Asgharzadeh uses Sociological theory and paradigms to make the following cases:

(1) Iran is an imaginary construct.

Asgharzadeh links the late Edward Said's "Orientalism" (which actually concerned itself mostly with Turco-Arab relations with the West) and claims that Iranian history as we know it is based on "Orientalist" scholarship - he labels these as "Aryanist" and "Indo-Europeanists". In a sweep (by attaching academic-style references - like Brenda Shaffer), he has labelled ALL of Indo-European scholarship as "racist" and "Orientalist". Interestingly, it seems as if Asgharzadeh is placing Sociological theory above anthropology, linguistics, and historiography; it is as if, Sociology alone is able to replace these other aforementioned disciplines. Here we see a case of ideology using "scientific" sociological theory to suppress other disciplines that produces data that contradict one's views.

(2) Asgharzadeh subscribes to the conspiracy theory that the ancient world fabricated the history of Iran.

Again, he relies on a small set of "historical references", but these are not primary sources. He makes no allusion to references in ancient Japan, Greece, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam - I also doubt if he reads Greek or Latin - he makes no references to the works of scholars such as Mazzini or Spatari (these are in Italian and not translated to English as of yet). He is also re-interpreting a select number of Greek and Roman references, among others. What is fascinating is that Asgharzadeh insists that the term "Aryan" is simply the application of western "Orientalist" scholars - yet fails to explain why the term keeps appearing in Greco-Roman sources such as Strabo, Herodotus or in archaeological sites such as Paikuli (Shapour I's inscriptions of victory against Rome).

(3) He promotes the notion that the vast Majority of Iranian Azarbaijanis, Kurds and Iranian Arabs wish to separate from Iran.

Using sociological theory (while failing to appreciate the science of historiography), Asgharzadeh fails to provide any hard data to back up his assertions. A number of preliminary surveys have found these assertions by Asghar-Zadeh to be untrue.

Not surprisingly, one of the "reviewers" of Asgharzadeh's book is Iran-hater Brenda Shaffer (see link to Amazon). Both Asghar-Zadeh and Shaffer have shot themselves in the foot. This is because both rely on the narratives (and creative fiction) of Nasser Pourpirar. You may wish to see the following link regarding Pourpirar in Wikipedia:

He claims that construction of Persepolis was never finished [11] and the Achaemenid dynasty whom he considers as a group of ancient barbarian Slavic invaders ended with Darius the Great, after they returned to their homeland in Eurasian steppes. The rest of the Achaemenid, Parthian, Sassanid, Tahirid, Ghaznavid, Seljuqid, and Samanid dynasties according to Pourpirar were fabricated by historians of mostly Jewish background as part of a Jewish conspiracy. [5]

This is fascinating. Brenda Shaffer (herself of Israeli descent) has often cited Pourpirar as "evidence" for her notions of questioning the legitimacy of Iran as state. It appears that in her zeal to discredit Iranian history, Shaffer is citing any source she can without carefully checking first. She (like Asghar-Zadeh) have endorsed the views of an anti-Jewish fanatic. Note Pourpirar's hatred of Iran and the Persian language (he was born in Tehran in 1940):

Regarding the importance of Arabic language for a predominantly Muslim country like Iran, he has stated that: "It is very unfortunate that we can not put the Persian language aside and replace it with the language of Koran. However the future of Iran is at the hand of Islamic Unity. Spreading Arabic language among Iranian youths and incorporating it more seriously into the education system [...] can make a foundation for such Islamic Unity."[10]

Pourpirar has reportedly praised Saddam Hussein, who followed the doctrines of Pan-Arabism and is disliked by Iranians and Kurds for killing millions of Iranians and Kurds, referring to Saddam as the "Great Arab hero" and the "symbol of resistance.[10] Pourpirar is quoted saying: "Saddam is a hero of the Islamic movement against Zionism and if he is killed, like any other POW, he is a martyr at the hands of infidels."[11]

Asgharzadeh also writes for the Newspapers of the Republic of azarbaijan. See the following sample below:

The Anatomy of Iranian Racism: Reflections on the Root Causes of South Azerbaijan’s Resistance Movement
Baku Today Newspaper

...

Asgharzadeh is in the Department of Sociology at York University. This is alarming. We are now getting more and more historical revisionists (harboring a political agenda sympathetic to ethnic-conflict discourse) being allowed to teach in western academic mileaus just as Iranian programs in history correspondingly decline. This vacuum is allowing for historical revisionism to accelerate.

Here is a small sample list of anti-Iran academics (there are many more):

Mehrdad Izady (Author of: Kurds: A Concise Handbook)
He has helped establish a "Kurdish Studies" (separate from the all-inclusive Iranian Studies which includes Kurdish studies) in the Czech Republic; [See LINK]

Brenda Shaffer (Author of: Borders and Bretheren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity)
Caspian Studies Program
Harvard University

There are many other venues being pushed into mainstream western academia aiming to reduce Iran's legacy (e.g. Arab Gulf Studies, Central Asian Studies, Azarbaijani Studies, etc.) thanks mainly to various lobbies harboring petroleum and geopolitical interests. The common aim of all of these "academics" and lobbies is to discredit Iran as a state and especially its history before Islam.

Regards

Kaveh Farrokh
*****************************

It looks like this Pourpirar/Bana-Konnandeh, who has been used as a "source" for Brenda Shaffer, a typical Harvard An-tellectual lefty, is not only a thief but also a true terrorist!! Unfortunately, almost all memebers of Hezbeh Tudeh, main supporters of Mosadegh, unlike Mossdegh, turned out to be traitors to Iran, and true Taazis./ blank
***************************************************
Nur Al-Din Kianoori and Pourpirar
Nur Al-Din Kianoori, the leader of the Tudeh Party of Iran met Pourpirar (who went by the name Banakonandeh at that time) before the revolution. He wrote about his encounter with Pourpirar.

“ Naser Bana-Konnandeh, who signed his name as Pourpirar was dismissed from the party (Hezb Tudeh) in 1980 due to stealing the funds of the party and the money of his business partners in the NIL publishing house. Afterwards he started to go against the Hezb and started publishing articles against me.
My acquaintance with Bana-Konnadeh took place in Germany. One year before the revolution, he came to West Berlin and I am not sure which contact it was that set up a meeting between us… In the meeting he said he has a plan for the terror of the Shah. His plan was to buy a piece of land near Niyavaran road, the road where the Shah’s automobile usually traveled on for access to his summer palace. Through this land, he described that he will dig a hole underground, and connect the hole all the way through the middle of the road and place a powerful bomb in the hole and when Shah’s car goes through that exact spot, he will detonate the bomb. Bana-Konnandeh wanted my opinion on this. I thought that he was either crazy or a provocateur. The plan’s non-practical nature was apparent to me and I explained that it was not practical and it would be better for him to publish the manuscripts of the Tudeh party. Thus, through this meeting, we became acquainted.

After coming back to Iran (after the victory of the revolution), Bana-Konnandeh came to the office of the Tudeh party and offered to publish the newspaper titled “Mardom”(People). After a while it became apparent to us that he was overcharging highly for the newspapers and books he is publishing on the parties behalf. Thus Pur-Hormozan, head of publication branch of Tudeh Party , conferred with me and it was agreed that we should not use the services of Bana-Konnandeh anymore. This decision made Bana-Konnandeh extremely angry and I heared a report that he went to the office of Pur-Hormozan in the parties headquarters and had insulted him severely. I went upstairs to Pur-Hormozan’s room and saw at first hand the uncivil manner of Bana-Konanndeh. Immediately I called upon the party’s security member and ordered that Bana-Konnandeh is not to be allowed anymore in the headquarters of the party. Despite this matter and despite his reaction, which he started to publish against the party, Ehsan Tabari (a high ranking communist member) continued his relationship with this corrupt person and wrote letters to Bana-Konnandeh. The letters were used later on by Bana-Konnandeh to his advantage in order pursue his point of view. Bana-Konnandeh after a while later was arrested by the Islamic Republic for contacting political leaders of Bulgaria and was sent to Evin prision. In the revolutionary court, he claimed that he was against Tudeh since the beginning! I am not sure how long he was jailed and when he was released.
”

[9]

Pourpirar's personal views
Regarding the importance of Arabic language for a predominantly Muslim country like Iran, he has stated that: "It is very unfortunate that we can not put the Persian language aside and replace it with the language of Koran. However the future of Iran is at the hand of Islamic Unity. Spreading Arabic language among Iranian youths and incorporating it more seriously into the education system [...] can make a foundation for such Islamic Unity."[10]Pourpirar has reportedly praised Saddam Hussein, who followed the doctrines of Pan-Arabism and is disliked by Iranians and Kurds for killing millions of Iranians and Kurds, referring to Saddam as the "Great Arab hero" and the "symbol of resistance.[10] Pourpirar is quoted saying: "Saddam is a hero of the Islamic movement against Zionism and if he is killed, like any other POW, he is a martyr at the hands of infidels."[11]